A Muppet IPO Roundup

Another interesting week in the market and in the PF Blogosphere.

We start this week with a post from Bargaineering, Your take: Is investing in IPOs smart, or strictly for muppets? My own answer? It depends on whether one gets IPO shares at the IPO price or if the price is the elevated price at the open of trading. I was fortunate to get 100 shares at the IPO price, and will hold on to Twitter for a while. I wouldn’t have bought it at $46.

My friend J. Money is Obsessed With Rich Habits, because Tom Corley’s site Rich Habits offers some great reading. I hope Tom isn’t insulted when I say his work reminds me a bit of the work of Dr Thomas Stanley, author of many best sellers, The Millionaire Next Door and Stop Acting Rich among them. As long as we are a country of spenders vs savers there’s room for this message to be offered by many writers. Nice find, J.

Nerd’s Eye View’s Michael Kitces wrote about The Impact Of Taxes On The Safe Withdrawal Rate. We keep hearing about how 4% is the rate we can withdraw funds from our retirement accounts, but how do taxes affect this number? Michael explains.

Black Friday. Even the name sounds ominous. After all, Black Tuesday was bad. Very bad. You know what Black Friday is – the day after Thanksgiving, when stores offer prices to entice us to go save money on things we never needed in the first place. At Five Cent Nickel, Psychology of Black Friday: Motivation behind the pursuit of deals. If you miss reading this article, you will risk having your pocket picked on Black Friday.

Ask the Readers: High-deductible health insurance: yea or nay? A post at Get Rich Slowly that grabbed my attention. I’ve always felt that real insurance had a low premium, but a high deductible. In other words, I’m protected from the disastrous expense an accident might cost me, but would pay for routine doctor visits out of pocket. Ellen Cannon discusses her take on these plans.

Miranda Marquit guest posted at Investor Junkie, Is Your Company’s 401(k) a Good or Bad Plan? Miranda wrote “With many small businesses, you might pay between 1.5% and 2%.” 2%? I think there’s a special place in hell for those who run plans that charge 2%. If your 401(k) is 1% or over, deposit to the match, then run the other way. It’s that simple.